


You’re Real

by writers will write (Liliywrites)



Category: Supergirl
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, TW anxiety and/or depression, ladies lovin ladies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23415298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liliywrites/pseuds/writers%20will%20write
Summary: Alex and Maggie working through different stages in Alex’s Anxiety/Depression.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Alex and Maggie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	You’re Real

**Author's Note:**

> TW for panic attacks and gaslighting.  
> Also although this a fic to fit Sanvers, it is somewhat based on a true story.

###  It’s four in the morning. Alex woke up about a half hour ago to use the bathroom. A few minutes after she crawled back into bed with her snuggly girlfriend, her heart seized. It’s four in the morning. Alex woke up about a half hour ago to use the bathroom. A few minutes after she crawled back into bed with her snuggly girlfriend, her heart seized.

She began struggling to breathe. Her vision went white and then slowly came back to her. She had no idea what was happening or why it was happening, All she knew is that she and Maggie were going at it until just a few hours ago and Maggie has an important meeting about a case she really needed to be alert for in the morning. She could not wake her up. 

  
She remembered the short list of breathing exercises Maggie had written up for her the week when her anxiety had gotten really bad. God, she really loved her girlfriend.

So, as carefully as she could, Alex lifted her right thumb close to her mouth and began blowing onto it. Soon, her breathing regulated, she took a big sigh and closed her eyes. 

“I’m proud of you.”

It was so quiet. If Alex wasn’t trained in picking tiny things like that up, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. With her heart warmed, Alex snuggled closer to Maggie, burying her head in the crook of her girlfriends neck. 

“I’m sorry I woke you.” Alex said, trying not to sob. She always felt overwhelmed with emotion after an attack. 

Maggie shook her head and held her love closer. “Don’t be. You are way more important. I’m seriously so proud of you.”

They held each other tight until they both drifted off back to sleep. 

**

A few hours later, Alex woke up under the pleasantly crushing weight of her massive comforter with her girlfriend right on top. Thinking to herself, Maggie must have rolled over her, on her way back from the bathroom in an attempt to be cute and wake her up but only put Maggie into a level of comfort where she herself fell asleep, just like that, sprawled atop her girlfriend. 

Usually Alex liked it, Maggie was tiny, not heavy at all and it made her feel safe and warm. But today she felt her panic begin to set. She had no idea why, she usually had no problem with people, especially her girlfriend, using her as a body pillow. But she couldn’t breathe like this today. 

In an attempt to free herself from the increasingly crushing weight that was this beautiful woman, she tried to wiggle her way out from under her. But when Maggie groaned her disapproval and wrapped her arms around her, Alex stiffened, she really hated waking her but she couldn’t breathe. 

“Maggie.” Alex whispered, waiting a few seconds before trying again. 

“Maggie, babe please.” She wiggled some more but still, barely a groan. 

Alex hated waking her, but she was starting to hyperventilate. Maggie finally lifted her head, eyes still half closed as she felt Alex’s chest rise and fall, harder and harder. “Babe.” 

Alex with her eyes closed responded with shallow breaths, “Maggie...please. I can’t breathe.”

Maggie rolled off almost instantly, nearly falling off the bed with an, “oh fuck.” Not because she almost fell, half asleep, off their very large bed, but because she hadn’t realized what was wrong with Alex. 

“Babe, I’m so sorry.” Maggie just sat there reviewing. Pulling all the covers away from Alex, opening the window, getting her a glass of water. 

When she returned, Alex was curled into herself on the bed, still in harsh shallow breaths and she couldn’t seem to steady herself. 

Maggie held out her hand for Alex to take when she was ready. She wasn’t waiting very long. Alex grasped her hand, holding it very close, almost as if it wasn’t attached to Maggie’s torso. Maggie smiles lightly. With a soft, firm voice Maggie gave Alex the orders she knew she was ready for. “Hey, open your eyes for me please.” 

Alex always knew that if she wasn’t ready, then Maggie would just sit with her until she was but hearing that special tone Maggie uses only for her, made her calm down a bit. She slowly opened her eyes. “Hey” Alex whispered through a rough breath. 

“Hi, love. You ready, or not yet?” A random stray tear fell from Alex’s eye before she nodded. 

“Okay, babe. Love that my hand is your life line right now, but I’m just going to reposition it and I need you to breathe with me okay?” Maggie said softly. Letting Alex take her time. Smiling a little wider when Alex nodded again and dropped a kiss to her knuckles. As Maggie moved her hand to rest sideways on Alex’s chest, to where the tips of Maggie’s fingers could feel her heartbeat, she held eye contact with Maggie as they took slow, deep breaths together. 

“You’re doing great, love. Keep going.” 

And she did, until the last one. One big sigh of relief. Maggie didn’t move her hand, she knew Alex needed it more right now. 

Alex who, finally, was able to breathe comfortably and relax, played with Maggie’s fingers and left kisses all over them. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for trusting me. I’m sorry about that, by the way.” Maggie said looking down at her folded knees. 

Still holding onto her hand, Alex reached out with the other and lifted her chin to look at her. “It’s not your fault. You were asleep, you couldn’t have known.” 

Maggie’s bottom lip wobbled. “Hey, come on. I’m okay. I promise. It’s not your fault, Mags. Come. Come lay with me for a little bit, please?” Alex’s voice was soft and pleading. 

Maggie gave in and laid there with her. 

They rested their foreheads together, Alex raising her head, if only for a moment, to kiss Maggie’s cheek. 

“I love you, Mags. We’re gonna be okay. I promise.”

**

The next day, Alex had been sent home early. Which rarely ever happens, but today it had to. Alex wasn’t herself again today. 

She was, but she wasn’t. She got up, she kissed her beautiful girlfriend, she went to work. But for some reason Alex has all this frustration and anger and sadness that she just couldn’t find the source of. 

J’onn ordered, rather than told, her to go home and sleep it off. Which is exactly what she was going to do. 

She threw on some boxers and a baggy shirt and crawled into bed. 

Although she couldn’t will herself to sleep. It actually did the exact opposite. Her thoughts and racing mind keeping her wide awake. 

She thought about everything as she laid there from the moment she crawled into those covers to the moment Maggie came home. Her thoughts spiraled and spun until there was nothing else but Alex questioning her entire life. 

Leaving her with questions like, “Am I faking this?” “Was I faking being in a bad mood today, just because maybe I didn’t want to be at work?” “Is there really anything wrong with me?” “What if nothing is wrong with me and I’ve made all this up for attention?”

Maggie noticing the lump in the bed, approached confused. Alex wasn’t supposed to be home yet.

“Al?” 

Nothing, no movement, no signs of life. 

“Babe, you asleep?” 

Very slightly audible mumbling could be heard. So she wasn’t asleep. 

“Alex, babe, you alright?”

That seemed to strike a chord. 

More mumbling came from under the covers, slightly louder this time though.

“Um...no.” Coherent and clear. 

Maggie went to her side of the bed and crawled underneath the covers, wanting to be at the same level as Alex but not forcing her out of a dark head space before she’s ready. 

She approached quickly and quietly, this took delicacy. “Hey, babe.” She whispered. 

“Fake.” “Attention” “Coward.” The mumbling continued but this time Maggie picked up some words. 

Soft and firm, but delicate. “Hey. Look at me please.”

Alex’s eyes immediately meet hers but she’s not there. She’s too far down the rabbit hole. Maggie takes a deep breath and steadies herself, as she tries to think. 

Maggie pulled out her phone. She pulled up YouTube and a few seconds later, A River Flows In You played aloud. 

For some reason this piano classic calmed the Elder Danvers woman. 

It took a minute or two but, Alex’s mouth closed completely. No mumbling. Her pupils dilate back. Her eyes close slowly and open again with a slight gulp. 

“Hey.” Maggie said, testing the water. 

“Hi.” Alex said, defeated. 

“How long have you been laying here like this, babe?”

Alex sighed, “what time is it?”

“Uh, seven thirty.” Maggie was honestly scared for the answer. 

“Oh, that’s bad.”

“How long, babe? Maggie needed to know. 

“Uh, three and a half hours.” Alex winced, ready to hear it, about wasting her life away. She could easily make a list of all the comments her mother could make if she heard this. 

“Do you mind if we get you up? Or is that too much right now?” 

Honestly, she’s not even shocked. She knew her girlfriend was too good. That she would never chastise her for having a rough day. 

“I will, but do you mind getting me some water? My head kind of hurts.” 

“No, no, of course not.” Maggie practically trips over herself in her rush to get the love of her life anything she needs. 

She takes one sip, then another, then another, before she makes a move to get out of bed. Removing the covers slowly, Maggie is already at her side, waiting to do whatever may be next in helping her girlfriend. 

If someone was to walk in and see her without context they would just think she was hungover, by the way she was holding her head in her hands, and looking a bit pale. 

Maggie held out a hand for her to grab on to, to steady herself as she stands. 

She whispers, scared to push her away. “Have you eaten anything since breakfast this morning, love?”

Alex shakes her head very slowly. “No. I’m sorry, please don’t be mad.”

“No, no. I’m not mad, babe. Just concerned, that’s all. Can you sit with me, while I make us something to eat?”

“Mhm” Alex nodded. Slowly walking to the kitchen and taking a seat on the stool. 

“Do you want something to snack on while you wait?” Maggie offered. 

“No, thanks. I’m good.” Alex follows Maggie with her eyes as she gets the tuna salad ingredients ready. “Honestly, I’m not really in the mood to eat anything. If that’s okay?”

“I’ll tell you what.” Maggie said searching Alex’s body for anything she could find, that might tell her what happened. “Eat three bites of this salad and then have a cup of tea, and that’s it. I won’t ask you to eat anything else. It’s okay to not be hungry, Al. It’s okay to not totally be feeling like yourself, right now. It’s okay, to feel whatever it is that you are feeling, but you do have to eat, even just a little bit. Please?”

“Anyone ever told you, you are very persuasive? Also very beautiful?”

Maggie smiles a bit, there she is. “A couple people.”

-

Alex was her second bite in and she could tell something was weighing heavily on Maggie. So she decided she would bring it up. 

“I’m not sure what it was that happened. I know that J’onn sent me home early. I know I was feeling a little overwhelmed and a little under the weather. But then I got here, got under those covers and everything changed. I didn’t know what to feel or how to feel it, so I kind of just sank into that feeling. I didn’t know I was stuck for nearly four hours, until you asked.”

Maggie took a deep breath and tried to process that. “Do you, do you remember the last tangible feeling you had before you sank?”

“Uh, not entirely. I guess the last thing I remember is all the feelings I was having just blurred together and formed this one big ball of overwhelm.” Alex chuckled a bit. 

“What is it?”

“Nothing, really. I just realized that I should have seen this coming like this.”

“What are you talking about, Al?”

“It’s my fault, this happened. I was having a rough few days. I should have known crawling into bed wouldn’t have made it better.”

“Hold on, babe. Stop for a second. I’m not blaming you. No one is blaming you. I don’t want you to blame yourself. Because what you are doing right now, blaming yourself, and trying to rationalize why it’s your fault, that’s gaslighting, babe.”

“What? No. Gaslighting is making someone else question their worth not doing it to yourself.”

“Babe, come on. Please, you know self gaslighting is real. You don’t deserve to live like this, babe.”

“No, Maggie. Even if it is real, that’s not what I’m doing. I’ve been lying about everything.”

“Okay. Okay, so what have you been lying about? If you want to tell me.”

Alex sighed heavily, contemplating what to tell her. “I don’t know, Maggie.” It was barely above a whisper. “I just feel guilty about everything.”

“Guilty about what, babe?”

“I just feel like I’m always making something up, always hiding something. And I only do it for attention. Like today, was I really feeling overwhelmed or was I trying to act like it so that J’onn would send me home?”

“And you don’t see how crazy that sounds?” Maggie winced the second she said It. That was a very poor choice of words. As Alex curled into herself, Maggie corrected herself. “I’m sorry, that was a bad choice of words. But Al, come on. You love your job. You put everything you have into that job. You wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. So you “faking it” for attention or for whatever it may be. I don’t believe that. And neither should you.”

Alex has tears in her eyes but wouldn’t let them fall. “But then why did I do that? Why did I lay in bed for four hours and make myself think that?”

“Depression, babe. No one said it was easy.” Maggie brushes the hair out of Alex’s face. Alex nodded slowly. Still not entirely sure what to believe. “Hey, I’m proud of you.”

“For what?” Alex asked, genuinely confused. She hadn’t done anything today to warrant it. 

“For talking to me about it. For eating, whatever you could. For being you, because I’m always going to be proud of you for that, even if you don’t know it or think you deserve it.”

The tears finally fell from Alex’s eyes, but it was okay, because Maggie was right there to catch them. 

“Do you wanna go for a walk, get some ice cream and some fresh air? Or do you wanna lay on the couch and binge watch A Million Little Things? Either one is okay, whatever you are feeling is okay.”

“Can we just stay here and watch A Million Little Things?”

“Yeah, of course. Let’s do it.”

**

The next night, Alex was home from work first. There was still two hours before Maggie got home. 

She sighed heavily. She was drained. These past few days have left her emotional all day, and now that she was home she just wanted to take a nap. 

But she found that she couldn’t sleep, every bone in her body was asking for rest but her mind was racing. 

She decided to hop in the shower, after all, what else was there to do?

Letting the steaming hot water relax her sore body, this may not be a nap but damn, did she need this. 

After a while of standing there, leaning against the wall, the water began to run cold, so she decided it was time to get out. 

She threw on what she assumed was Maggie’s baggiest hoodie and a pair of sweatpants and made her way out of the bathroom. Only to find a completely different scene from when she entered the shower. How long had she been in there?

She walked out of the bathroom to Maggie’s relaxation candles lit, her girlfriend's favorite Spotify playlist playing and the love of her life standing by the stove cooking. 

She never understood what it was but there was always a pull at her heart whenever Alex saw her girlfriend for the first time in a few hours. More so, now, with Alex feeling a bit out of it these past few days. 

So, Alex put her towel down on the bed and quietly walked up and wrapped her arms around her. 

Maggie, slightly startled as she hadn't heard Alex come out, jumped but then melted into her love’s arms. 

As the song that came on next was very appropriate for the time, Maggie began to sing. She turned the burner all the way down, to ensure no burning of the food, and turned her body all the way around in Alex’s arms. She sang directly to her. Looking her right in the eyes as she did it. 

“This my baby.” She pointed to Alex. 

Alex smiled brightly at her. Maggie continued. 

“Touchin’ you slowly, love how you hold me” 

Smiling down at their joined bodies.

“I was a player, that was the old me” 

Memories of Alex and Emily.

“I sent a prayer for something holy”

“Got naked and show me”

Memories of last night.

“Girl, summer’s been lonely, yeah”

…”With you, it’s a better me”

They both nodded at the same time. 

“I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’ is I-“

Alex smiled, looking away shyly, but Maggie lifted her chin to look at her. 

“I fuckin’ love you” 

Maggie sang with such passion.

“I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’ is, I“

Maggie kissed Alex’s damp shoulder before singing,

“I fuckin’ love you (ah yeah)”

“Love you through the better days, love you through the rainy ones.”

“I really do.” Maggie added before continuing. 

“Champion, you’re number one, yeah, that’s true”

“I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’, I guess what I’m sayin’ is, I” 

Kiss to the cheek. 

“I fuckin’ love you (ah, yeah, ah)” 

But then..

“Yes, I do, chillin’ top floor with a penthouse view, but that don’t mean a thing unless I’m next to you, ‘cause money just money ‘less I spend it on you, Next to me, when I’m with you, you bring out the best of me.”

Alex began to sing back to Maggie with just as much passion. 

Then together, at the end. 

“I guess what I’m sayin’ is I, I fuckin’ love you” 

“That’s my baby”

“My baby.”

And so after the kisses and the laughs and the compliments. I guess what they’re saying is they fucking love each other

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.  
> Come find me on Twitter @ordinaryliliy


End file.
